Science and Society

The Vision

agincourt — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:23:46 -0500

President Bush and his staff thought they were reinvigorating the American spirit of exploration when they proposed the "Vision for Space Exploration." They wanted NASA retiring the space shuttles by 2010, returning to the moon by 2020, and eventually sending...

Mission Endeavour

agincourt — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:03:35 -0500

(Update: 8:25 p.m. EST) Space Shuttle Endeavour lit up the sky at the Kennedy Space Center as it launched tonight, racing up the east coast of the United States on its way to orbit Seven astronauts are on board. Their...

How McCain Won (or Could Have)

agincourt — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:40:05 -0500

According to the totals so far, Barack Obama won the election by something more than 8.4 million votes. But Mike Sheppard says the margin that really matters was only 445,912. Sheppard, you may recall from a previous post, is a...

Requiem for a Robot: Mars Probe Dies

agincourt — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:52:06 -0500

(Updated 4:00 p.m EST) Phoenix Mars Lander, the plucky little ship that was sent to land in the Martian Arctic in May, has fallen silent. A source at NASA confirmed it this afternoon, and mission managers talked about it at...

Jurassic Park, the Sequel

agincourt — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:52:28 -0500

The whole premise of "Jurassic Park" was preposterous on its face. Making clones of long-dead animals? We know better. But now a Japanese team has taken -- let's say, a step. They report, in this week's Proceedings of the National...

"Lifelong Republican" EPA Chiefs Back Obama

agincourt — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:08:24 -0500

There is a man-bites-dog quality to this story: the first two administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency, both appointed by President Nixon in the 1970s, say they are voting Democratic this year. "We are lifelong Republicans," write William Ruckelshaus and...

Circuit Breaker

agincourt — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 13:22:31 -0500

Did you shop very much at Circuit City? Did you find yourself alone there? The chain, facing a one-year decline in same-store sales of 13 percent -- even before the market tanked -- has announced it is closing 155 of...

Spaced Out

agincourt — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:10:39 -0400

It will be 40 years next summer since Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, but there's still a space race on. The major players, and their motives, of course, have changed since the Cold-War days: it's now China, Japan, India...

Can You Hear Me Now?

agincourt — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:13:00 -0400

Let me tell you about the day I decided civilization was finished. I was in a men's room at an airport. A man came in, yakking loudly on a cell phone. He did his business, flushed, and left -- and...

Tough Cars for Tough Times

agincourt — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:29:14 -0400

Take a look at the BMW 5 Series sedan. It's a well-built upscale car -- but that's not the issue for the moment. Does the front of the car resemble a face to you? It does to many people. What...